Author: Brian Lund
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SNAP benefits start cutting off for adults up to 64 when the work-rule clock closes September 30
A three-year clock that decides whether hundreds of thousands of older Americans keep their grocery benefits runs out on September 30. For the first time, adults in their late 50s and early 60s are on that clock, after a 2025 law pushed the age ceiling for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s work rules all the…
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A new way of counting utilities is cutting SNAP benefits for about 600,000 households
Behind the headlines about SNAP’s new work rules sits a quieter change that will shrink grocery benefits for hundreds of thousands of families without any change in whether they qualify. A revision to how utility costs are counted in the SNAP benefit formula is lowering monthly payments for roughly 600,000 households. It works not by…
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A debt collector must give you written proof of a debt if you ask within 30 days
When a debt collector calls, the person on the other end holds a quiet piece of leverage that few people use. Federal law gives anyone contacted about a debt the right to demand written proof that the debt is real, that the amount is correct, and that this particular collector has the right to pursue…
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The FTC warns of a second wave of recovery scams that target people who already lost money
Losing money to a scam is bad enough. Federal consumer regulators are now warning that for many victims, the con does not end there. In an August 3, 2026 consumer alert, the Federal Trade Commission described a follow-up hustle it calls “the worst of the absolute worst”: recovery scams that deliberately target people who have…
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Marketplace health premiums jump for 2026 as extra subsidies lapse, hitting people 55 to 64 hardest
For the millions of people who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the cost math is changing for 2026 — and not in their favor. The enhanced premium tax credits that had held down monthly costs since 2021 expired at the end of 2025, and their disappearance is pushing up…
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The average home insurance bill is near $3,057 and has climbed 46% since 2021
Homeowners opening their insurance renewal this year are finding a familiar shock: another increase stacked on top of last year’s. The insurance-shopping firm Insurify projects the average U.S. home insurance premium will reach about $3,057 by the end of 2026, a figure that has climbed roughly 46 percent since 2021. That is nearly three times…
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One in seven Americans has unclaimed money sitting in a state database you can search for free
Somewhere in a state database, roughly one in seven Americans has money waiting under their name — an old paycheck, a forgotten deposit, an insurance payout that never reached them. Across the country these forgotten funds add up to an estimated $70 billion, and the search to see whether any of it belongs to you…
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A new law seeds a $1,000 government-funded savings account for babies born through 2028
Every U.S. citizen baby born over a four-year stretch is now in line for a $1,000 head start on saving, courtesy of the federal government. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a new kind of tax-advantaged investment account for children, nicknamed a “Trump account,” and seeded it with a one-time federal deposit. For families…
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The state and local tax deduction cap jumped to $40,000 under the new law
Homeowners in high-tax states have spent years bumping up against a $10,000 ceiling on what they could deduct for state and local taxes. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act lifted that ceiling to $40,000 beginning in tax year 2025, a fourfold increase that reshapes the math for a specific slice of taxpayers. The change is…
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Layoffs have hit more than 200,000 U.S. workers in 2026 — check your severance and final-pay rights
Layoffs have become a steady drumbeat in 2026. Tracking data counts more than 205,000 U.S. workers affected across 320-plus separate layoff events this year, which works out to roughly 865 job losses a day, with a large share of announcements citing artificial intelligence and automation as a factor. That aggregate is not one company’s story;…
